Durarara!! Episode 10 – Awakening

For those of us who watched the latest episode of Durarara!!, there was a major turning point in the plot at the very end of the episode. There’re a few speculations I have on what the meaning behind Mikado’s little surge of inspiration was exactly, but we can safely assume now that Mikado will begin playing a major role in the series finally.

This honestly felt like a really short episode. It starts off with a brief recap of Mikado’s involvement with the Celty/Celty-Mika chase from the last episode. Mikado invites Kida over and tells him everything that happened and while Kida does not really believe a word that Mikado has told him, Kida still makes light of the whole situation as he normally would. This extends into the next day at school while Kida attracts attention to Mikado’s “problem”. Of course, no one at school believes his story either. Kida and Mikado eventually seek out another student by the name of Takiguchi Ryo, who Kida has a suspicion is a Dollars member. This is shortly found out to be true when Takiguchi openly admits the fact to Kida and Mikado.

This seems to be all lead up to where Mikado gets a chance to meet Celty (with Izaya spectating close by). Mikado asks Celty if he could see what’s behind her helmet and Celty agrees. Mikado is strangely overcome with joy and agrees to attempt to talk Celty-Mika into talking with Celty. However, it seems that Celty-Mika has disappeared and two mysterious men from Yagiri Pharmacy ambush Mikado in his own apartment. Izaya and Celty chase off the two guys and Mikado is saved. When Mikado hears that the two men were from Yagiri Pharmacy, he some how pieces together various events and facts that he’s learned recently. After logging into the Dollars website (perhaps for the first time or not) he stands up and faces Celty and Izaya and simply says “All the cards are in my hand.”

Now I’ve lost it, I know I can kill…

So, really. I am at a complete loss as to what really happened here. I don’t want to be spoiled or anything, but somehow I feel that there is something that I am missing here. I get that he’s logging into the Dollars site (with an interesting password btw =P) but I don’t really understand why he’s doing so after having his little epiphany. Is it a simple “calling to arms” or is there something more to this? At any rate, it seems that things are going to get a lot more interesting from here on out.

Vroom, vroom!

Izaya is such a roller coaster of emotions. There are times where I think he’s a total “bad guy” and a jerk but other times where he’s just completely awesome. This episode belongs to the latter. Izaya brings a new meaning to kicking a guy when he’s down. Not to mention, imaginary motorcycle Izaya was equally amazing.

Togusa’s really passionate about his car…

I guess it’s okay if she’s pretty… right?

So in closing, I’m on the fence on a single matter regarding Mikado. Was Mikado already a member of the Dollars and was feigning ignorance this whole time? Then this revelation at the end of the episode would just be a confirmation that Mikado is really a Dollars member. OR! Was Mikado not a member prior to this event and this is just a way of showing that he’s decided to become a member… GAAHHH There’s also the fact that Takiguchi calling Mikado famous. Just what is going on? I can’t wait for next weeeeeeeeeek!

Well what exactly are these “cards” he’s holding? Is it the Dollar members? Is it all the “pieces” of the puzzle? Ahh, I really don’t know what to believe… it may be clear cut for some of you guys but I can’t really settle on one conclusion.

Well the reason I said that is because what I thought he meant by saying that was that he basically sees all the connections between all the mysterious happenings recently… like he has all the cards now which makes a complete hand. But yeah you’re right the metaphor doesn’t really work in that sense so it must be the former.

I like your theory about Mikado finally deciding to join the Dollars. I have seen other theories floating around the ‘Net, that just don’t seem as persuasive. Let’s consider that Mikado might have received the text message to join (as described both in this episode, and earlier by Dota-chin), but never acted on it. It would be reasonable for him to be curious about the Dollars, as he has been shown to be. In this episode he meets a real member and discovers that they are kind of cool — not bad guys, at any rate. Finally he puts all the peices together about Celty’s head and the pharmacy, and he decides that he will join the Dollars and fight for justice.

This explains one of the things I was wondering about: why is Mikado using a cell phone while he is logging into the Dollars website? Because he is accessing the text message on his cell which tells him how to log in (that is he is just joining now).

Truly this was a great episode. At first I thought it wasn’t as good as last week’s (which was so much fun), but I kept thinking about it and ended up re-watching it to make sure I understood stuff. Now I am just in awe.

Interesting. I overlooked that part with the cell phone and that makes total sense. But judging by Izaya’s “skeptical” response, I was thinking that Izaya believed Mikado to be a leader of the Dollars.

Right, the skeptical thing makes a little bit of sense now. Perhaps he was skeptical if Mikado would really join the Dollars and now that he has, Izaya got his “jackpot”. Or it could have been like you said and that Izaya was skeptical that Mikado was really the leader.

Well, here’s something interesting to think about. Celty and Mikado evidently spend a long time talking before Mikado finally takes them back to his house. The entire time, Izaya talks on his phone and keeps an eye on the pair. I believe what he’s doing is gathering as much information on Mikado as possible, in conjunction with his brief experiences with the kid. When Mikado logs into the website, bingo, Izaya’s suspicion is confirmed.

The more and more I hear people talk about this, the more I’m starting to believe what people are saying about Mikado’s role in the Dollars. I guess it’s too much of a shock for me to believe it to be true given his personality up until this point. But seeing how the information is already out there and people have been spoiled left and right, I’ll have to assume that the majority is correct on this one.

Well, just to throw another idea out there… Izaya seemingly was in touch with Scar-neck in the previous episode, so he might’ve been called by her, or by someone he had pick her up (he seemed to have control of the police in last week’s episode??).

I agree. “Jackpot” could mean that he is excited that Mikado has turned out to be useful. “Skeptical” could mean he thought Mikado might not be useful. If someone turns to you and says he has figured it out (my interpretation of “holding all the cards”), and you were trying to solve a problem, you probably would feel pretty excited. (And Izaya seems like a very excitable guy).

Obviously this is just conjecture, though, so take it with a grain of salt.

If he really is the leader, then what I am curious about is how he even created the Dollars. Was it on a whim and was lucky enough for all those people to join? And if he really is the leader then why did he always act so oblivious when anything about the Dollars came up? I have a hard time believing that it is simply “good acting” or anything like that.

Of course though I’m probably wrong since the information is already out there…

The creator has said before that Celty is the protagonist (Mikado’s just the first character you meet, like Manta in Shaman King but far more epic). That may or may not help you understand the characterization… >>

Actually the hints were so big the moment he went into recap mode and started fitting the pieces together. Mikado created the Dollars. I confirmed that on Wiki, since someone already mentioned it.

As to why he “feigned ignorance”, he actually did not. My theory is that he started it out on a whim, just wanting to live life differently, and thought a different form of gang might have been cool. The other, more far-fetched explanation is he somehow lost his memory, but that one seems unlikely when applied to Mikado.

One thing is for sure – from here on out, Mikado might actually be pretty cool, and seriously pack a punch in the series.

Come on people, you don’t have to spoil it for the rest! I have been super majorly spoiled – ahh i want to erase what I know about celty and the slashers – a while ago, and I don’t wish that on anyone for this show.

But yes, mikado is actually not the main character. I didn’t know about this little info when i first watched the show though. Like Baccano, I guess everyone is a main character.

you shouldn’t look too much into why Mikado is famous, he’s probably only famus in school and the episode implies he’s famous in school because of his name which is awesome… if people haven’t done so already copy out Mikado’s name in Jap or Chinese and run it through a translator or ask someone who can read it and ask their opinion of it

Remember people… Izuya has been looking for Mikado from the very beginning of the series. Why would the top informant in the city be interested in some normal 15 year old? Also, check out how Mikado looks down whenever he hears about the Dollars supposedly doing something wrong and compare it to how happy he was when he heard Ryo’s story from an actual Dollars member.

Btw… the three people in the chatroom that they always show? It’s beyond obvious after all this time that it’s Mikado, Celty and Izuya. If you go back and look at past episodes to look at their conversations again, it’ll reveal a whole lot that you didn’t notice the first time around.

But yeah, at first I didn’t think he would be the leader of the Dollars, but since everyone is saying so and looking back, it’s starting to make more sense. Not to mention about half the people out there already go spoiled or read up on it ahead of time.

Seriously, what Epinephrine said. But yeah, at least the comments here make more sense with that “Mikado is the founder” argument than the other 2 blogs I hit trying to understand everything. They kinda just wrote it out in one sentence.. and I couldn’t piece it together -_- Mikado=way too clueless IMO.

Oh well, certainly an exciting episode. Looking forward to the rest of the series!

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[…] start to change, solely due to Mikado’s development, or rather “awakening”, as Shokkeru from “THAT Anime Blog” says. Honestly, I’m so excited for the next episode, and I’ve got so many questions […]

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